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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7084994" data-attributes="member: 16586">[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]If it helps I'm not really shooting for Oscar or fine art novel level fiction when I play roleplaying games. I want things to be emotionally charged, but there is still plenty of bloody catharsis and action involved. As Play Passionately put it "I like to be emotionally conflicted while I punch zombies in the face." I'm really looking for the game to play out like a Netflix, HBO, AMC, Showtime, or FX Drama. Street Level Marvel and Vertigo Comics are also inspirations. I also dearly love Swords and Sorcery fiction. Common media touchstones include Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy, Mad Max: Fury Road, Penny Dreadful, Game of Thrones, Vikings, Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, American Gods, Conan, Elric, Black Company, Taboo, and The Walking Dead. Not super deep stuff, but still like compelling character focused stories. There are games that aim higher, but I generally don't play them that much.When I talk about mainstream gaming culture I am mostly talking about the Culture of Play that developed and was crystallized during the 1990s. Specifically the modes of play purported by games like AD&D 2e, Vampire - The Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, 7th Sea, Legend of the 5 Rings, Shadowrun, Exalted, Pathfinder, Numenera, Fate, and the like as played according to their texts. I expect that your game, much like AD&D 1e exists somewhere in between that era and the Roleplaying Game as Wargame era. More Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Planescape. Less Greyhawk. Based on my reading of later modules my inner Roleplaying Games as War Games fan would argue that Gygax spent too much time in California and not enough time in Lake Geneva as First Edition waned. Also Dragonlance money.What I am emphatically not talking about when I speak about mainstream roleplaying games and why I choose not to use the traditional motif are games like Moldvay B/X, Classic Traveller, Classic RuneQuest, Stars Without Number, and Godbound. Lewis Pulsipher of  The White Dwarf is probably the most clear voice of this style of game. It's the roleplaying games as games, not stories crew that I view as traditional. To be fair what would become known as the Middle School Culture of Play that I am addressing as Mainstream Games was pretty much always there. Lewis Pulsipher was always pretty critical of what he called the California school and constantly warned against what this <a href="https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?801314-Story-Gaming-The-Narrative-Grasping-Reflex/page6" target="_blank">thread over on Big Purple</a> calls the Narrative Grasping Reflex, both on the parts of players and GMs. There have been gaming style conflicts as long as roleplaying games have been a thing!When it comes to games like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World restricting player agency in ways that both Traditional Games as in War Games or Lake Geneva School and Mainstream Games as in Middle School or California School games do not that was my entire point! They are designed to grant players additional agency in some areas like granting them access to the sort of intuitions and social advantages we meaningfully experience in meatspace and being able to depend on the rules and meaningful skilled use of fictional positioning. They are also designed to limit player agency in ways we experience in meatspace where we can be meaningfully convinced of things we would otherwise choose not to be convinced of, to feel the weight of our emotions, psychological limitations, social obligations, and cultural conditioning. The design goal was not to maximize player agency. It was to resolve conflicts between our various motives as gamers to meaningfully enable emotionally conflicted play where we meaningfully play to find out what happens without having designs on the outcome! I was taking  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] to task for what I regarded as a poor argument even if we generally like the same sort of play!Quick Note: They do so using wildly different techniques. Burning Wheel, Cortex+, Dogs in the Vineyard and D&D 4e utilize a set of principles, resolution mechanics, and reward structures that rely on binding conflicts, player intent, and intense action. Those games can sometimes result in Story Advocacy. Fiction First games like Blades in the Dark, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, and Masks rely more on specific representational resolution mechanics and reward structures that preserve player autonomy, snowballing consequences, and war gaming style skilled play of fictional positioning to get to a similar place. Obviously the second set of techniques feels more organic to me. it relates to another one of my occasional snipes at  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and another long standing Indie Beef - Walking vs. Running Towards Conflict. I like a bit more introspection and strategy in my games.Here's another <a href="https://playpassionately.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/walk-dont-run-to-conflict/" target="_blank">Play Passionately passage</a>.When it comes to resolving the apparent contradiction between vigorous collaborative agreement and the possibility for competitive play and sometimes even open conflict here's what I have to say: I view it like a friendly poker game. We are all there fundamentally for the same reasons. Connections and relationships between Player Characters need not be warm and fuzzy. They might even be overtly hostile. In the moment we might be working at cross purposes, but we all want to find out what happens more than we want to win. It's not cut throat. We are motivated more by the challenge and strategy involved than a need to win. There is a strong fair play and good sportsmanship element. Even in games like Masks and Blades in the Dark where group play is assumed there will often be a measure of competition and conflict driven in part by the rules of the game.Look at this mechanic from Masks as an example:We want overwhelming unity of player interests with sustained in game conflict of interest just like when we play Poker. In this conception the GM is a player too for when group play is like a thing!I know the common conception is that collaboration and cooperation are actively opposed to competition, but <a href="http://quanticfoundry.com/2017/03/23/competition-not-opposite-community/" target="_blank">Quantic Foundry Lab's findings show otherwise</a>. Relevant passages quoted below.I know. I know. There goes  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] with his data science and overanalysis!</blockquote>

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